Learning to relax with yoga at School 5

Beth Hagedorn, a registered nurse and registered yoga teacher from Leap Unlimited Inc., spent a day at School 5 teaching students about yoga and practicing yoga poses during gym classes. Her visit was sponsored by the PTA.

Yoga is an ancient form of stretching and strengthening moves that originated in India. By focusing on the body’s movements and breathing techniques, practitioners of yoga can achieve mental and physical discipline and alleviate stress.

“Yoga is not just about how we move and do postures,” said Hagedorn to a class of third graders, “it is also about how we behave and how we use our breathing to get our brains and bodies strong.”

The yoga lesson began with a story from the book “A Frog Thing” that Hagedorn adapted for teaching yoga, since the story isn’t actually about yoga. Many yoga poses are named for living things seen in nature, including trees and animals, so using the book seemed natural. The children learned owl, eagle, goldfish and turtle pose and, probably the most well-known yoga pose of all, the downward dog.

School 5 Principal Diane Provvido is a fan of yoga and said that a yoga lesson fits in with the school’s overall efforts to teach students self-regulation skills.